Bangkok Hard Time (13 page)

Entering through the doorway of the American hut, I was challenged by a short but sturdy, dark-skinned Southeast Asian who asked in proper English if I was the new American. When I answered in the affirmative, the man stepped aside, then invited me to sit as he offered iced coffee. This man was called Cappy, a former boat captain from Burma doing a twenty-year sentence for piracy and murder. Now in the employ of Bob as cook, houseboy and watchdog, he was an evil-looking little scarfaced bastard whom most inmates disliked or feared – or both. Always wearing a disarming smile on his face that belied his true intent made Cappy extremely and deceptively dangerous. He was, however, thoroughly loyal to Bob.

There are two different accounts of his disappearance from the prison: one says Cappy was released under the Royal Amnesty granted for The Queens 60
^th
Birthday a decade later, while the other claims say he was kicked to death by a Thai inmate during an argument over a small box of washing powder. I prefer to think that he simply went home to Burma after getting his ass kicked by a Thai.

The small bamboo structure that was the American hut measured about four meters by six meters with a concrete floor and a thatched roof. After making my way in, I sat on the padded bench of the long wooden table next to a tall, padlocked, double-door rattan cabinet. An assortment of ice chests of varying sizes, a charcoal-burning stove, and two canvas reclining beach chairs completed the furnishings. Bounded on three sides by water and on the fourth side by a concrete patio and a tiny, fenced-in lawn, the whole property sat about two feet higher than the surrounding ground level. It was accessible only by a three-meter long wooden bridge. Just inside, over the doorway, hung a weighted bamboo club about one meter in length.

When I arrived, Bob was at the prison store and would return soon for lunch while the other residents were elsewhere. Cappy reported this as he served me iced coffee, then set about making a stack of ham sandwiches. Shortly thereafter, Bob walked in with a bag of goods from his shopping trip, which he set on the floor next to Cappy.

“Oh, there you are,” he said, addressing me. “What is this bullshit the Chinamen are telling me? They said you killed that rat out there with banana peels.” He then turned to Cappy, who only nodded his head for verification.

Seeing no advantage to either confirming nor denying the largely distorted account, I summoned up my best Clint Eastwood impression and, while trying not to laugh, I replied, “Well … you know … (then pausing to spit) … I feel real bad about that.”

First impressions are perhaps something one should never put much credence in, and this was a prime example of why. I found it useful, though, for the Chinese to believe what they wanted to believe. Most were young Hong Kong street gang punks who had seen too many Kung Fu movies and had served as mules for heroin smugglers. From then on, they always treated me with unfounded respect and that was fine with me. I allowed the bullshit rat-slayer legend to grow as it may. Years later, this barely deserved reputation I had acquired amongst the Chinese was to serve me well during the bloody chaos of the Chinese inmate versus Western inmate conflict that had been brewing long before I had ever arrived.

Bob unlocked the rattan cabinet and retrieved a folded paper of smack from somewhere inside. Laying out a few lines on a plate, he sniffed and offered me some. I thanked him and begged off saying, “Maybe later.” Then I asked if he had any ganja. With two packs of cigarettes, he sent Cappy scurrying away to return minutes later with a tiny, crumpled, hand-rolled joint. We smoked while swapping histories.

He was from California, like the majority of the other Americans there. When I replied that I was originally from Arkansas – Little Rock to be exact – it struck him as funny. From then on, he and the miserable others called me either “Little Rock” or “Rock”.

“It used to be beautiful here,” Bob lamented as he gazed out onto the surrounding area.

I cannot even begin to explain how strange that sounded. He then rattled on about how five years earlier, he had bribed the building chief to build the first house in this spot, which at that time was an actual horticultural garden project worked by the Thai prisoners. Varieties of herbs, spices and flowering plants had been grown there. Over the years, the building chief had allowed the growing influx of foreigners to build more and more huts in The Garden. Other than the six huge trees covered with loofah vines, the only grass or plants on the island compound now were in the tiny raised yard of the American hut. Real estate in The Garden had become quite expensive with the building boom.

Most of the American inmates were welcome visitors in the house anytime, though the majority stayed and ate at other huts. As an unwritten, but nonetheless understood rule no one else entered without stopping first on the bridge and waiting to be invited in.

Bob said that I could stay and eat with the three other US inmates – Chip, Albert and Mark – who also called this shack home. I eventually became a permanent resident of the house, but often made eating arrangements at other huts since there was a whole world of different ethnic cuisines to choose from. The invitation to take dinner at other huts was generally open, providing that there was enough left and one was willing to make recompense somehow.

At the six o’clock lockup that first evening, I returned with the crowd to the cell block building. Just inside the building, after running the gauntlet of blueshirts checking whatever was being carried into the building, I was taken by a guard to my newly assigned cell.

As he opened the cell door for me to stumble inside with my bed roll and bag of worldly goods, the keyboy rolled his eyes as if in apology. Inside I discovered the reason. It’s name was Matti, a sprawling, 150-kilo Swiss gormandizer sitting in the corner. He took up most of the space in the cell. Taking up the remainder of the available space were his two German cell mates, both of them less than half his size. I recognized these guys from Bumbat and knew them as harmless.

As the door was closing, Matti began yelling at me in a combination of German, French and English. He had paid the building chief to have only two other inmates in his cell, he was bellowing. His rant continued with the fact that there was no floor space for me and then said that I could not stay in this cell. However, if I did stay in the cell, then I would have to sleep on the tiny floor of the toilet area. On and on he went with his bitching for some time.

All this commotion brought the guard back to the cell door, giving me the opportunity to politely explain in Thai that the situation here was impossible and that I surely would have to beat up this loud mound of lard. The guard warned that, if I did, I would be sent back to solitary.

“I would prefer to stay in solitary,” was my calm response. The guard left saying he would return shortly.

At that point, the grotesque, sweating Swiss pig began squealing again. “What did he say? What did you say to him?” he demanded to know.

Ignoring him only made the slobbering blob of blonde, blue-eyed lard that more irate. I tried to reassure him that staying in his cell was not by my choice and it was not my choice to be in Thai prison, but he was not to be mollified. Finally, I told him to “shut up”. Maybe he thought I said “ stand up” since he attempted to raise his excessive bulk from the floor. I felt the clear need to be fearfully preemptive and splatter his nose across his face with the palm of my hand. He collapsed back in the corner. Being pushed to the limit of my normally peaceful, conflict-avoidance demeanor, I promised him that the next time he opened his mouth, I would feed him one of his eyeballs. Where that silly notion came from, I don’t know. But he must have believed the hollow threat because he never spoke to me again.

The guard soon returned and when the keyboy opened the cell door to let me out, he pretended not to notice the bloody-faced silent blob in the corner. I was placed in the next cell down the way, which was occupied by three normal-sized humans: two Frenchmen, Jean-Yves and Didier, plus a Japanese junkie named Yoshi. The trio muttered in French and Japanese while shuffling their bed rolls around on the floor to make a narrow though equal space for me. A day or two later, Yoshi was moved to another cell.

Since fourteen hours of each day were spent in the cells, it was important to have cell mates who were not too unpleasant. However, our social bonding had not seemed so congenial that first night. After arranging our bedding and exchanging brief introductions, I made the lame conversational observation that it was hot. Jean-Yves, a large, athletic thirty-year-old Frenchman from a small seaside village in Charente-Maritime, looked up from his reading and said, “Go take douche.”

Jean-Yves did not speak English well and, due to my ignorance of the French language, the comment was completely misunderstood. To me, it sounded as if he had suggested that I wash my vagina. I looked at him and then at Didier, who was just as large and athletic as Jean-Yves. I decided quickly that, at this juncture anyway, discretion was the better part of valor.

Yoshi had a working knowledge of many languages and even through his doped-up haze had cleverly recognized my consternation. He explained, “He is inviting you to feel free to take a shower.” Yoshi then cracked up laughing. When he explained the misunderstanding to the Frogs, the laughter became contagious and all was well in cell #165. Jean-Yves and Didier proved to be most congenial cell mates for the rest of the time I was a guest at Lard Yao.

Jean-Yves and Didier had paid to have only three in their freshly painted cell with a ceiling fan. The foreign prisoners were typically four to a cell unless monetary arrangements had been made with the building chief. Almost all Thais, except the wealthy ones, were squeezed in five or six to a squalid cell with no fan.

After the doors were locked in the evenings, the keys were sent to the Central Control Building where they were kept overnight. I never saw a cell opened for any reason once the keys had left the cell block. After sunset, even the cell section guards were locked inside behind the main doors of the building where they wandered the tiers peering into the cells periodically. Anything happening in the cells after lockup happened pretty much undisturbed, from inmates doing dope, smoking pot, fighting or even killing each other. Inmates fighting were dealt with accordingly the next morning. Any prisoner having a medical emergency was just out of luck until dawn.

Every morning, the keys for the cells would arrive from the Central Control building. You could hear dozens of keys rattling on dozens of keyrings manipulated by the keyboys going cell to cell from far away in the bowels of the building. Each cell had its own individual key. The noise they created as each squeaking, moaning, metal mechanism was actuated and the ancient steel doors were swung open on crying, screeching hinges always unnerved me. It seemed like the process took a little bit longer and grew a little bit louder each day.

After the door was opened and my cell mates had left, I would often continue to lay there on my bedroll on the floor for another hour or so just to be alone for a while. There was something calming about being in the cell alone with the door open.

From the long building just outside and directly below our cell window could be heard the clanging sounds of the hundreds of large, shallow metal bowls being placed in rows on the concrete floor. Sometimes if the wind was just right, you could smell the giant tubs of semi-processed red-brown rice and big tureens of Thai prison soup du jour. There were always ample mounds of brown rice to fill any empty stomachs.

The soup was made of whatever ingredients were obtainable by the system determined by market availability. Rejected or culled produce from the outside markets such as odd shaped, bruised and unsaleable vegetables or salvageable, leftover meat products were procured to feed the prisoners. Usually, various greens such as collards or watercress and eggplant mixed with the head and bones of fish with sparse flesh remaining from filleting or the bones of chicken carcasses, plus whatever else was available that particular day went into the mix. The aroma was not totally unpleasant, but neither did it inspire you to want to eat it. But it was not intended to be enjoyed, it was only intended to sustain. Thus the exact meaning of the first line of the three-line pledge that the Thai prisoners recited before partaking of meals, “I eat this food just to survive”, was very evident.

Whatever remained from the meals was either thrown into the ponds to sustain the fish population or was rerouted to the pigs on the other side of the prison. The ducks and chickens that roamed free range in the prison yards were off limits to the prison population, as were the fish in the ponds.

Not Just Another Day

The inequality of treatment prison authorities gave to the Thai prisoners and the foreign prisoners was glaring. For instance, each foreigner was given a once-daily ration of fully processed white rice with a better quality soup, but only the most indigent of
the farangs
ever ate it. Most of this special treatment food was bartered away to the Thai inmates in exchange for various services. Less than half of the foreign inmates worked and when they did, it was only for a few hours a day. Thai prisoners generally worked at least six to eight hours daily and some then did
a farang’s
work in exchange for the better food and maybe a few cigarettes.

I never saw a Western inmate subjected to corporal punishment; however, the Thais would beat their own people like dogs. The Thai inmates generally accepted it, but I think that the overwhelming majority of the foreigners did not understand the true reason for the disparity. The general consensus by the
farangs
was that we got preferential treatment not just because of our embassies’ interest and involvement in our relative well-being, but because we were inherently better and therefore deserving of better treatment. The true reason never occurred to most of them: that we were guests and being treated accordingly. Most
farangs
seemed to exhibit a pronounced sense of superiority – a very unbecoming quality in a guest, especially in an unwanted guest.

By far, the greater percentage of foreign convicts there had been busted on their first trip to Thailand and had never been in any jail before. They had little or no insight or understanding of Thai people, culture, customs or language. Perhaps because of deep bitterness and resentment against their captors, they made no effort to learn these things and continued to suffer from chronic culture shock.

In the final analysis though, the Thai prison elders (
the gao laaeo
) with outside pull and money occupied the top rungs in the hierarchy of inmates, hence the most preferential treatment. My appreciation of this made life, as it was, much easier. The Thai prisoners’ idiom – “I have life, but I am not living” – is most appropriate here. I was in a Thai prison, therefore playing by anything other than Thai rules would surely be an exercise in futility.

As Bob had warned, on that second day of walking the yard, a blueshirt came to find me. I was again escorted to the building chief’s office where it was explained to me that now that I was able to work, I would. I told him that I was expecting to have to work and asked how I could be of service. This earned some modicum of respect from the chief, though I had every intention of doing the least possible work, whatever the assignment was.

He sent me to the building where the Thais ate the prison food twice a day. Between meals, it was used as a work area for most of the foreign prisoners and the few Thai prisoners who were physically or mentally incapable of doing more strenuous or difficult labor.

There I met the very amicable Vinai, the guard who was in charge of meeting a daily quota of crafted silk flowers, which were assembled from pre-cut parts by the foreign prisoners. I reported to Vinai, speaking in Thai, saying that the building chief had sent me. That alone was enough to qualify me as the new flower factory foreman. What he had in mind was that I would assist him in convincing a few reluctant foreigners that they must fulfill their work obligation to the institution. After further delving into exactly what the job requirements were, Vinai said I should ask Bob, since this used to be his job. “Only help me to get the other foreigners to work,” Vinai added with an almost whining tone. At that point, I left to go speak with Bob.

Bob admitted that he had manipulated the situation so that I could take over his job. He was expecting to get a response from his petition for a Royal Pardon any day and was planning on returning home very soon.

“You speak Thai better than any of the others, the building chief likes you, and I am tired,” he moaned, tying to sound pathetic. “The BC said I would not have to work any more if I found a replacement,” he then added. What he failed to mention was that being the one breaking the balls of our fellow foreign prisoners to work for the Thai prison system was a job that nobody else would take.

It turned out to be not such a bad gig after all. With a little diplomacy, I got the ones who would not work to pay some Thais to do their little stretch of work for them and everybody was cool. Vinai turned out to be a real treasure. He was happy (with adequate recompense, of course) to help me purchase and bring in a variety of things that were not available through the prison store. Bob had developed this relationship with Vinai because Vinai’s wife was a guard at the women’s prison where Bob’s wife, Sherry, was doing time. The working relationship with this guard was another invaluable gift which the California junkie heroin smuggler had passed down to me – no strings attached.

On an unusually quite evening a couple of weeks later, all the natural night sounds were conspicuously absent. The giant bullfrogs around the fish ponds and the tiny frogs in the trees were silent. Not a single insect sang for a mate. The eerie, haunting calls of the night birds, like the one that Pee Lek had kept in a cage, had ceased. Even the big
tokay
geckos that frequented the outside walls of the buildings, searching for moths or any of the wayward, small
chin chok
lizards to devour, had stopped their loud noises, which sounded strangely like they were saying their own names: “Tokaaay, tokay.”

The
chin chok
is a darling little lizard that lives on the interior walls of any structure where it can gain access. Thai superstition claims that if one should walk or fall on you, it should be welcomed as a sign of very good luck

On this particular night, from a distance came flashes of blue white light followed by ridiculously deep, long rolling rumbles of thunder. It was only minutes later that the maelstrom of a serious Thai monsoon storm was directly overhead. The rain that fell was not delivered in measurable drops, but was more like a solid, free-flowing river pouring vertically from above. At the height of the storm, a bolt of lightening struck so close that its explosive reverberations shook the whole building like an earthquake. The dim lightbulb on the wall over the cell door went dark and stayed that way. In the darkness, I felt a
chin chok
fall on my left shoulder.

When the cells were opened in the morning, the keyboy informed us that we would be allowed to stay within the cell block building if we chose to do so. Since the entire prison was knee-deep in brown water, many of the prisoners took that option.

But Bob came by my cell and said, “Hey, Rock! Let’s go to the house, get high and eat breakfast.”

At first, I thought he was just kidding, but followed anyway. After wading through the shallow lake that used to be the prison yard and which was now home to the fish from the pond that had overflowed its banks, we made our way to the American hut. The floor, though damp, was still a foot above the level of the water. Cappy was already there chasing away the rats and snakes that had sought higher ground. He had fresh water for Bob’s coffee boiling in the pot over the charcoal stove. A couple of cats which were normally very standoffish were tolerating our presence by necessity and were occupying the two canvas recliners, where they were sleeping off that morning’s feast of baby rats that had been flushed out of their nursery warrens.

The only other edifice in Building #2 above water was the building chief’s office. He allowed the prisoners to collect and eat the fish that were caught up stranded as the water slowly receded, and by the end of the day in which most work had been suspended, a celebratory fish fry occurred.